


After

by tatou



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:10:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatou/pseuds/tatou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, they recover the body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

When the body is finally,  _finally_  pulled from the water, it’s stiff and white as a ghost, and when the screaming mother pulls it to her chest with a terrifying wail there’s an audible _snap_  and a faint  _crunch_  of brittle, frozen bone.

It’s with hushed reverence and sorrow that the other villagers watch; friends of the family put their hands to their mouths, cover their faces with distressed hands. Some turn away from the scene, unable to bear it.

Some children, those too young to understand what is happening, crane their necks to peer around their parents’ legs, eyes wide, their innocent little minds unable to register the concept of death, or horror; they only see the horrified families, hear the terrible, loud weeping of the mother and the sister, see them huddled in the snowy bank, curled over the corpse.

The others (those that are old enough to understand) sniffle and hold each other tightly, consumed in shock at the abrupt end of their friend’s life. They will have to explain the occurrence to the younger ones later, after the sister has explained it to them with hollow words and a blank, tired face. 

The corpse is terrible to look at, when they can catch glimpses past the mother’s grasp. Devastatingly pale, eyes wide open in the same expression of terror and pain he died with. Stiff and still, there will never again be another sign of life in that youthful face.

At least not to their knowledge.

It’s been several long, grueling hours since he went under-they have tried various methods of recovering him without losing another in the process. They have had close calls; the men who succeeded in recovering him stand by the mother’s side, their hats and gazes cast down in muted respect. Later, when the mother has regained a fraction of her right mind, she will thank them profusely, eyes overflowing with tears and lips dry from sorrow. As the days go by, new lines of sadness appear in her face. She will never be the same.

Now, she sobs and gasps for breath over the loss of her son, clutching him tight, her knuckles going white from the pressure of her hold. She is drenched and shivering, both from the force of her anguished sobs and  from the icy water that her son’s corpse has sloshed onto her once-dry clothing. She grabs a pale hand and presses it to her trembling lips, as though the heat of her breath and tears will revive him.

The sister is silent, and that’s almost worse than the mother’s screams. On her knees in the crunch of snow, she’s curled into her mother, one arm around both her brother’s body and her mother’s neck. Her eyes are red with tears, her mind filled with terrible thoughts, ones that scream of guilt and blame and that her brother is gone, gone,  _gone_. Never again will she see him smile, never again will she be woken by the poke of a smelly sock to her nose. The absence of his presence, something that has been so utterly constant and reassuring in her life is what rattles her, and her mind reels in shock. She weeps in silence and pleads in her mind for him to come back, hoping that this is some elaborate joke.

As long as she lives, the fear of death plagues her, and the phantom laughter of her brother follows her in the sweeter of her dreams, the ones where he’s alive and well and pops out of a bush with a shout of ‘Surprise!”

Above this spectacular display of grief, the moon is silent and watchful, and the cries of loss go long into the night.


End file.
